SEC Awards $28 Million to Seven Whistleblowers

SEC Awards More Than $28 Million to Seven Whistleblowers

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced awards of more than $28 million combined to seven individuals whose information and assistance led to a successful SEC enforcement action.

The seven whistleblowers were composed of a single claimant and two sets of joint claimants. Each of the claimants provided information that significantly contributed to an SEC investigation. The single claimant and first set of joint claimants provided significant and detailed information early in the investigation that saved staff considerable time and resources. The second set of joint claimants provided new, but more limited, information later in the investigation.

BarnBridge DAO Agrees to Stop Unregistered Offer and Sale of Structured Finance Crypto Product

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that BarnBridge DAO, a purportedly decentralized autonomous organization, and its two founders, Tyler Ward and Troy Murray, will pay more than $1.7 million to settle charges that they failed to register BarnBridge’s offer and sale of structured crypto asset securities known as SMART Yield bonds. The Commission also charged the respondents with violations stemming from operating BarnBridge’s SMART Yield pools as unregistered investment companies. To settle the SEC’s charges, BarnBridge agreed to disgorge nearly $1.5 million of proceeds from the sales, and Ward and Murray each agreed to pay a $125,000 civil penalties.

SEC Payouts to Whistleblowers Plummet Amid Record Surge in Tips

The number of whistleblowers receiving awards from the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped sharply in fiscal year 2023, even as more tips poured in than ever before, and a single informant received the largest payout in agency history.

The agency received more than 18,000 tips in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, a 50 percent jump from the previous year, according to the SEC whistleblower program’s annual report to Congress. But only 68 tipsters got any money, compared to more than 100 in each of the previous two years.

Ousted Binance Founder CZ’s Fortune Grew by $25 Billion in 2023

He may be headed to prison next year after pleading guilty to US criminal charges in November, yet 2023 held a silver lining for former Binance Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao: His estimated wealth ballooned by almost $25 billion this year.

Toward the end of a year when Bitcoin rebounded more than 160% following a market collapse in 2022, Zhao tops a list of crypto entrepreneurs who saw their estimated net worth surge in 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Coinbase Global Inc. CEO Brian Armstrong and twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss also had billions of dollars restored to their fortunes.

Mt. Gox Crypto Exchange Appears to Have Started PayPal Repayments Tied to 2014 BTC Hack

Almost 10 years after being hacked, the Mt. Gox crypto exchange appears to be starting to repay customers who lost 850,000 bitcoin (BTC) now valued around $36 billion.

Some participants in the mtgoxinsolvency subreddit group said they had received payouts in yen over Paypal. Others, who’d chosen to receive cash into bank accounts, said they had not seen any inflows.

The exchange, launched in 2010, was the world’s biggest when it was hacked in 2014. It was ultimately able to recover about 20% of the stolen funds. Earlier this year, it extended the deadline for repayments by 12 months until October 2024.